Osborne’s cuts will strengthen Britain’s economy by allowing the private sector to generate more jobs

Private sector will generate additional jobs.

SIR – It has been suggested that the deficit reduction programme set out by George Osborne in his emergency Budget should be watered down and spread over more than one parliament. We believe that this would be a mistake.

Addressing the debt problem in a decisive way will improve business and consumer confidence. Reducing the deficit more slowly would mean additional borrowing every year, higher national debt, and therefore higher spending on interest payments.

The cost of delay would result in almost £100 billion of additional national debt by the end of this parliament alone. In the end, the result would be deeper cuts, or further tax rises, in order to pay for the extra debt interest.

The cost of delay could be even greater than this. As recent events in some European countries have demonstrated, if the markets lose faith in Britain, interest rates will rise for all of us.

There is no reason to think that the pace of consolidation envisaged in the Budget will undermine the recovery.

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The private sector should be more than capable of generating additional jobs to replace those lost in the public sector, and the redeployment of people to more productive activities will improve economic performance, so generating more employment opportunities.

So, each writing in our personal capacity, we would encourage George Osborne and the Government to press ahead with his plans to reduce the deficit.

SIR – What a pity Simon Heffer refers to the metric international system of weights and measures as the “infliction of European totalitarianism on Britain” (Comment, October 16).

This logical system, now over 50 years old, emerged from wonderful international co-operation after the Second World War. Long before the EU existed, it replaced a hopeless mess that was impeding the development and teaching of science and engineering and many other subjects. By 1960 it was being used in British colleges and universities.

Regulation of these matters by the EU has been remarkably cautious and the EU’s plan to enforce metric-only labels and ban any supplementary indicators (imperial measurements) on goods has been abolished.

Metric usage is nearly universal. Only three nations have still not adopted it for civil usage: Burma, Liberia and America, though in the United States it is taught in schools and in science.

Anyone who goes shopping in Britain must have become familiar with pricing

in kilograms and related subdivisions such as “price per 100 grams”.

Bob Pearson Bourne, Lincolnshire

The Tate in my garden

SIR – A small area in front of my house has been covered in pea shingle. I now regard this as a sensory installation which I can touch, walk on and listen to as the shingle shifts beneath my feet.

If disappointed visitors to Tate Modern (report, October 16) fancied coming round for a stroll on it, I wouldn’t mind at all, but would ask them to refrain from taking souvenirs.

Robin Steggles Holbrook, Suffolk

Time for turkey

SIR – The Christmas Special sandwiches already available in the Boots shop at Kings Cross station include one called the Boxing Day sandwich.

Am I alone in wondering whether that sandwich is made with left-over turkey from Christmas Day, 2009?

Bob Rattenbury Pinner, Middlesex

Testing foreign doctors

SIR – It is alarming that hundreds of foreign GPs are not assessed for language skills (report, October 13). While it is true that EU regulations do not allow the systematic testing of these skills by our regulator, this in no way absolves potential employers from satisfying themselves as to a doctor’s competence.

If any medical practitioner is responsible for the employment or supervision of an incompetent doctor he/she renders him/herself liable to investigation by the General Medical Council.

Delegation of medical appointments to lay managers or personnel departments without any medical input is dangerous.

In the case of Dr Daniel Ubani, it seems that West Yorkshire got it right by not employing him, and Cornwall and Cambridgeshire got it wrong.

SIR – Some foreign doctors are, in fact, given quite thorough English tests before being allowed to work in Britain.

In 2002, my Australian daughter-in-law, who had recently graduated from the University of Sydney medical school, applied to work in a teaching hospital in Glasgow as a junior doctor.

The most surprising part of the interview and selection process was the English language tests she was required to pass as she was from outside the EU.

As a Commonwealth citizen whose mother tongue is English, she easily passed the tests only to find that she had great difficulty understanding the colloquialisms used by some of the Glasgow GPs, for example: “This patient has been feeling a bit peelie wallie.”

Frances Knipe Armagh

SIR – Since 2008, I have had to provide proof of my proficiency in English to maintain my UK professional pilot’s licence.

I fail to understand why the same requirement should not apply to migrant doctors.

Doctors and airline pilots are equally capable of causing disaster by misinterpretation.

Alan Robinson Bucklebury, Berkshire

Parish quitting Church for Rome raises questions

SIR – St Peter’s Church in Folkestone, Kent, has decided to join the Ordinariate, a system designed by the Vatican to allow Anglicans to convert (report, October 16).

The reason for this drastic step? The proposed ordination of female bishops, a measure which Rt Rev John Broadhurst, the Bishop of Fulham, has described as “fascist and vindictive”.

Good riddance! The Church is no place for intolerance.

That a few men are too insecure to take direction from women – this, despite the fact that the Church of England has been stewarded and championed by three female monarchs – suggests that they may not be that great at ministering to the needs of the women in their parishes.

As the Church of England is an egalitarian Protestant faith, treating women as second-class citizens really doesn’t fly.

Tereska Lynam London SW7

Sparkling specs

SIR – While enjoying a pint of ale in my local, I was amazed to see one of the regulars casually hand his spectacles to the barmaid, who added them to a rack of glasses which went into the glass-washing machine and were put through a wash cycle. Is this the strangest thing seen in a pub?